Privacy policy

We place great importance on protecting your data. Here you can learn what information we collect, how we use it, and what rights you have.

Privacy notice

The Swiss Climate Foundation supports small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in accelerating the development and implementation of innovative products and technologies that contribute to decarbonisation and thus to climate goals. The foundation thereby contributes to the climate objectives of Switzerland and Liechtenstein and to the competitiveness of the economic sector, with innovation playing a key role and SMEs being essential for climate protection.

This privacy policy explains how we process your personal data when you visit our website, participate in a funding programme, or interact with us in any other way.

Trust is crucial, especially when it comes to your data. For this reason, we see it as our responsibility to collect only the data that is strictly necessary, to manage it with due care, and to protect it from misuse.

The information in this privacy notice applies in accordance with the applicable law.

Responsible entity

The entity responsible for processing within the scope of this privacy notice:

Swiss Climate Foundation
Mythenquai 50/60
8002 Zurich

If you have any questions, concerns, or requests regarding this privacy statement or your personal data, including how it is processed, please contact us at the above address or via the contact form.

Processing of personal data

We collect personal data about you, for example when you submit a funding application. Personal data refers to information related to an identified or identifiable person. Types of processed personal data may include:

Contact details such as first name, last name, email address, postal address, company, and phone number.
Registration data such as username or user ID.
Interaction data such as inquiries via our contact form, social media interactions, or correspondence related to applying for and processing a grant.
Payment data such as the amount and compensation of grants, as well as bank account details.
Usage and technical data such as IP address, information about your device’s operating system, date, region, and time of use, browser type used to access our electronic services, web pages visited, and logs created in our systems (“Logs”).

The data mentioned above is generally provided to us directly by you. You are not obligated to provide us with data. However, if you choose not to provide us with data, it may mean that we are unable to enter into or maintain a contractual relationship, interact with you, or grant you access to websites and services.

Purposes of processing and legal basis

We use your personal data for the following purposes:

Contract execution: We process your personal data to assess funding applications, establish the terms of any potential funding, project monitoring, and processing payment of grants.
Marketing: We may process your personal data to send you information about the Swiss Climate Foundation, funded projects, or climate-related topics, to notify you of events involving the foundation, or to invite you to participate in surveys or other activities. You can opt out of such communications at any time. If consent is required by law, we will ask for your approval beforehand. We will only send newsletters after you have subscribed.
Public relations: As part of our public relations efforts, we may publish personal data such as names, companies, and information about a project and its funding across various media channels, including our website, publications, and social media. This processing occurs in our legitimate interest to communicate about the work of the Swiss Climate Foundation and raise awareness of climate protection actions and funding opportunities.
Compliance with legal obligations: We may also process your personal data to comply with legal obligations, such as tax and record-keeping duties, preventing, detecting, and investigating criminal offenses or other violations, and cooperating with authorities.
Operational and security purposes: We process your personal data for administrative purposes, to manage and improve IT infrastructure, to secure IT systems and facilities, and to protect our rights, for example, in enforcing and defending legal claims. This processing is done based on our legitimate interests.

We may also use your personal data for other purposes that are compatible with the original purpose for which they were collected.

Operation of our website

We may process technical and usage data to analyze the use of our website, ensure operational security, optimize user-friendliness, and display information that may be useful to you, based on our legitimate interests. For this purpose, we use cookies and similar technologies on our website. Further information can be found in our cookie notice.

Duration of processing

We keep your personal data only as long as necessary for the purpose of processing or as required by law. After this period, your personal data will be securely deleted. In the case of legal retention obligations, we typically store data for a period of 10 years.

Disclosure

We may disclose your personal data in connection with our services and for the purpose of the Klimastiftung Schweiz, to fulfill our legal obligations, or other legitimate interests as outlined in this privacy notice, to third parties both within and outside the country. This may include our partner companies to enable the designated members of the advisory board and foundation board to fulfill their duties. These recipients are contractually obligated to comply with applicable data protection laws and confidentiality requirements.

UTo provide our services and fulfill our contractual or legal obligations, we may collaborate with data processors such as suppliers, IT service providers, and others who process personal data on our behalf. They are contractually obligated to process the data only for the purpose of providing their service to us. Personal data will only be shared with third parties for their own purposes after notification and based on your consent, unless required by law.

Cookies

This website uses cookies. These are small text files that allow specific information related to the user to be stored on the user’s device while they are using the website. Cookies are used to determine the frequency of usage and the number of users of the pages, to analyse browsing behaviour, and to make our offering more user-friendly. Cookies remain stored after the browser session ends and can be retrieved on a return visit to the website. If you do not wish this, you should configure your internet browser to refuse cookies.

A general objection to the use of cookies for online marketing purposes can be declared for many services, especially for tracking, via the US page https://www.aboutads.info/choices/ or the EU page https://www.youronlinechoices.com/. Furthermore, the storage of cookies can be disabled in the browser settings. Please note that in this case, not all features of this online service may be available.

What rights do you have?

Depending on the applicable data protection law, you have the following rights regarding your personal data:

Access: You have the right to request whether we have stored personal data about you and, if so, which ones.
Correction: If your data is incorrect, inaccurate, or incomplete, you can request it to be corrected.
Objection: You have the right to object to the processing of your data under certain circumstances, particularly for direct marketing purposes, for profiling for direct marketing, and for other legitimate interests in processing.
For other processing carried out within the framework of legitimate interests, after your objection, we will reassess the balance between our interests and yours, taking your particular circumstances into account. If we have an overriding reason, we may continue processing your data.
Withdrawal of consent: You have the right to withdraw your consent at any time, as long as our processing is based on your consent.
Data portability: Under certain circumstances, you can request an electronic copy of the personal data you have provided to us, either to yourself or to another organization.
Restriction of processing: If you are unsure about the accuracy or use of your data, you can request that we stop processing it until your query is resolved. We will inform you of the outcome before taking any further action regarding this information.
Deletion: You can request the deletion of your personal data, provided it does not conflict with our legal and regulatory obligations. If we process your data based on your consent and you withdraw it, you can ask us to delete your data.

If you are not satisfied with the way we handle your rights or our data protection practices, please let us know. If you are residing in the EEA, the United Kingdom, or Switzerland, you also have the right to lodge a complaint with the relevant data protection authority in your country.

How can we change this privacy notice?

This privacy policy is not part of any contract you have entered into with us. We reserve the right to amend this privacy policy at any time.

Last updated: 1 February 2025.